


Highland Tiger

by Azvolrien



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, if you're old enough to be on the internet unsupervised you should be fine, intermittent bad language, some blood in chapter five but no gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azvolrien/pseuds/Azvolrien
Summary: Wildcat hunts alone; that's how grumpy kwami Alli insists it's always been. But when park ranger and part-time superpowered mountain rescue operative Sandy Macpherson hears about others like her in Paris, a rather unusual week's holiday ensues...





	1. A Hunt in the Snow

            Sandy lifted the blind and gazed out onto a blanket of pure white. The branches of the ancient pines around the cottage drooped under the snow’s weight; the squirrel feeder hanging from the nearest tree, usually busy in the morning, was deserted. Only a trail of tiny footprints – a robin, most likely – disturbed the otherwise pristine surface, while a few flakes still drifted down from the ominously dark clouds above.

            Faint voices came from the kitchen. Sandy pulled on her dressing gown and wandered through to fire up the coffee maker.

            “Looks like it really came down overnight,” she commented as the machine gurgled away on the counter. “The forecast did say this could be the snowiest winter we’ve had in a few years.”

            “And there’s still a blizzard up on the plateau,” said Alli, her attention fixed on the radio. She lifted one little arm when Sandy opened her mouth again. “You’ll want to hear this.”

            Frowning, Sandy collected her mug and joined her kwami by the radio.

            The newsreader finished running through the morning’s headlines and continued with the first item.

            “A group of fifteen French students and their teacher are missing on the Cairngorm Plateau,” she said, far more sombre than her usual chirpy demeanour. “The students, from the Valérian High School in Paris, were due to arrive at their hostel in Aviemore yesterday afternoon following a day of orienteering in the mountains; when they did not appear and failed to send word, the hostel owner contacted the police. Although mountain rescue teams have been mobilised to look for the missing group, fears are growing for the students’ safety due to severe weather conditions on the Plateau.”

            She went on in more detail, giving the names of the teacher and a few of the students as well as a recorded interview with one of the rescue teams, but Sandy had ceased to listen. She gulped down the last of her coffee, grabbed a croissant from the bread bin, and ran back to get dressed.

            Without speaking, Alli switched off the radio and rose from the worktop, hovering midair as Sandy re-emerged from her bedroom zipping up her fleece with the silver badge of her Miraculous pinned to the front.

            “Come on,” said Sandy, pulling up her hood. “We’ll take the mountain road up to the funicular and go from there.”

            Alli whisked inside the hood and curled up against Sandy’s neck. “I doubt the railway will be running in this weather,” she said. As always, her voice utterly failed to match her appearance: though she roughly resembled a little tabby kitten, she spoke with a deep, resonant purr rather than a high-pitched mew.

            “Probably not,” said Sandy, collecting her keys from the hook by the door. “But if my sheltered little garden is this bad, what do you think the open hillside will be like? The tracks will be easier to climb even if the cars aren’t moving. Let’s go – the Catmobile will still handle the snow.”

            “You’ve _got_ to stop calling your old Land Rover that,” said Alli with a sigh. “It… it doesn’t sound good.”

            “Oh, shush. Let me have my fun.”

            Minutes later, the aged Defender rolled out of the driveway. As it made its way up the winding mountain road, amongst the snowbound trees and past the iron-grey expanse of Loch Morlich, the snow fell thicker and faster with every turn of the wheels. Soon even the snow tyres and four-wheel drive were struggling to keep the car moving, but eventually they made it up to the base station at the road’s end. The Land Rover wasn’t alone in the car park, but any other vehicles – three cars and a minibus, from their sizes – were no more than snow-covered mounds in the blizzard.

            Sandy switched off the engine and climbed out, shading her eyes against the snow. Alli poked her head out from inside the hood and pinned her ears back.

            “Well?” she asked.

            Sandy squinted upwards. The snow was so thick that she could barely even see the station, let alone the summit. “And on my day off, too,” she said with a sigh, and squared her shoulders. “Alli – the hunt is on.”

            The light of transformation crackled over her, and Wildcat loped out to shoulder open the base station door.

            The man at the ticket desk, bundled up in a thick tartan blanket, sat up straight. “Good grief, you even come out in _this_ weather?” he asked.

            Wildcat shook the snow from her hood. “This weather’s when I’m needed the most, Davey,” she said. “I take it the funicular isn’t running?”

            Davey shook his head. “We haven’t been able to clear the track – and there are still people stranded up at the Ptarmigan. They’ve been there since last night! I’m only still here in case we can get the trains moving again.”

            “You might be waiting for some time if this doesn’t let up.” Wildcat vaulted the barrier onto the platform and hopped down onto the tracks in front of the stationary train. “I’ll see you in a while, most likely,” she called back. “I’ve got work to do out in the mountains.”

            Davey lifted a hand in farewell and pulled his blanket back around himself. Wildcat nodded back and stepped out from the shelter of the base station. The steel claws on her toecaps slid from their sheaths, digging into the snow gathering on the tracks, and she set off at a dead run.

            It didn’t take long to find her rhythm, bounding easily from one sleeper to the next as the track climbed higher towards the summit of Cairn Gorm. Snow gathered on her suit with every step, but Alli’s power kept the cold and damp at bay nonetheless. Within the space of only a few minutes, she ducked inside the tunnel at the top of the track and leapt up to the Ptarmigan Station’s platform.

            A dozen people looked up in surprise when she burst into the café, shedding snow in all directions.

            The woman at the till almost collapsed in relief. “Wildcat!”

            Wildcat brushed the last few errant snowflakes from her shoulders and shook out the coil of rope across her chest. “Good to see you too, Heather,” she said, letting her claws retract. “Is this everyone here? Nobody else has wandered off onto the hills?”

            Heather shook her head, but lowered her gaze. “Some people did set off on their skis last night, but we got word from the base station that they made it down safely. But… there’s still no sign of those French kids. _Look_ at it out there.” Heather gestured towards the nearest window. “Total whiteout. They’ll never get a rescue helicopter through it. If they don’t show up soon…”

            Wildcat grasped her shoulder. “I won’t let this be 1971 all over again,” she said. Letting go, she looked around the café. Both tourists and staff looked back at her, the tourists with much more confusion. “The heating’s working, so you have power?” she asked. Heather nodded. “Right. I ken you all want to get back down the mountain, but you’ll have to wait a while longer – it’s a nuisance but you’re in no danger so long as you _stay in here_. I’ll be bringing those kids here if they’re close enough, so have soup, tea and blankets ready, enough for everyone.”

            “What happened in 1971?” one young skier asked his companion, who just shrugged.

            Heather nodded and waved to one of her colleagues, who nodded back and began filling kettles. A few others went to raid the gift shop, returning with armfuls of blankets, fleeces and rugs.

            “Sit tight, then,” said Wildcat, opening the outside door. “I _will_ find them.”

            _Not 1971,_ she told herself, _and not ten years ago either._

            The door swung closed behind her, and she disappeared into the driving blizzard.

            A hundred yards uphill, the snow filling her footprints behind her, she went down on one knee, planted one hand flat on the ground, closed her eyes, and listened. The ears on her hood twitched back and forth, picking up on all the signs of life for miles around.

            A little flock of ptarmigan, fluffed up beneath the snow.

            A mountain hare, digging a shallow scrape for itself.

            A pair of golden eagles, safe in their nest on a rocky crag.

            A group of reindeer, picking their way across the high plateau.

            And there, to the south, beyond Cairn Gorm itself and near the summit of Ben Macdui: humans, one adult and fifteen teenagers, in whatever little shelter they had managed to find. Weak, distressed, and close to freezing, but alive.

            Wildcat rose to her feet, turned south, unsheathed her claws again, and began to run. Up the mountainside to the summit of Cairn Gorm, then south across the plateau; over tiny, half-frozen streams carving deep furrows in the ground; skirting the edges of some cliffs and clearing others with a single leap, until finally, on the snowfield above Loch Etchachan, a flash of colour caught her eye amongst the white. She abruptly changed course, her claws preventing an uncontrolled skid on the deep snow, and brought herself up short an instant before she would have toppled forwards into the small hollow in the rock. Normally it would have filled with snow, but today it housed sixteen shivering figures in brightly-coloured hiking jackets, all reds and blues and yellows, huddled close against the teeth of the storm.

            Wildcat dropped to her knees and grabbed the teacher’s shoulder. The middle-aged man slowly lifted his head, revealing a face almost hidden by a hat and scarf, and eyelashes encrusted with snow.

            “Is anybody hurt?” Wildcat asked, raising her voice over the wind. “Can you all walk?”

            For a moment he just looked at her in blank confusion, before he nodded and replied – through violently chattering teeth – in accented English. “We are all very cold,” he said, “but nobody is injured. I think we can walk.”

            “Good. Let’s get you all indoors.” Wildcat lifted the rope from around her chest, tied one end to her belt, and began looping it around the wrists of all the lost walkers until they were linked together in one long, snow-covered crocodile, Wildcat at its head and the teacher at the tail.

            Little by little, as they got moving and slowly warmed up enough to speak, Wildcat caught snippets of conversation from the students behind her.

            “ _C’est un super-héros!_ ”

            “ _Comme Ladybug?_ ”

            “ _Non, plus comme Chat Noir!_ ”

            “ _Mais c’est une femme…_ ”

            Wildcat frowned for a moment, but quickly put it out of her mind. Curiosity could wait until they were off the mountain.

            The walk back to the Ptarmigan was a great deal slower than her journey out, constantly interrupted by slips and trips where the snow concealed rocks and roots and sheets of ice, but nobody lost the rope and the students worked hard to keep each other moving. One step at a time, they descended from the plateau and finally stumbled into the warmth of the café.

            “Somebody contact Mountain Rescue,” said Wildcat, freeing the students from the rope and looping it around herself once more. “I don’t like to think of them still out there looking when the kids are in and safe.”

            “We have their radio frequencies,” said Heather, nodding as she set out steaming bowls of soup and mugs of tea and coffee, while staff and customers alike worked to help wrap the young rescuees up warm. “We’ll get the news out to them.”

            Wildcat nodded and surreptitiously checked her Miraculous. She wasn’t sure how long she had spent out in the mountains, but the little wildcat’s stripes had not yet begun to vanish. Plenty of time to get back down before she lost the transformation.

            As she turned to leave, one of the students grabbed her hand.

            “ _Merci, Chat Tigré,_ ” said the girl, a woollen blanket and a sheepskin rug wrapped around her shoulders. “ _Merci._ ”

            Wildcat gently freed her hand, taking a moment to call up the dregs of her high school French. “ _De rien,_ ” she said, fairly certain that was how to say ‘you’re welcome’. “I have to leave,” she said, her French exhausted. “You’ll be safe here until the train starts running again.”

            She walked back down the tracks at a more leisurely pace, nodding to Davey at the base station as she let herself back out into the car park. The blizzard was finally beginning to lessen, and the snow had not yet built up to impassable depths around her Land Rover.

            Her Miraculous began to flicker just as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

            “The hunt is over,” she said. With a flash of light, her suit vanished and Alli perched on the steering wheel. Groaning with the fatigue that the magic had held at bay, Sandy reached behind herself and took a cocktail sausage from the coolbox in the back seat’s footwell. Alli delicately took it between her arms, inspected it for a second, and wolfed it down in three bites.

            “You and I need to have a conversation,” said Sandy as she switched the engine on and Alli settled on her shoulder. Alli made a noncommittal sound. “But it can wait until we get home. Do you speak French, by any chance?” she continued as she cautiously steered back down the mountain road.

            “I speak the languages of my chosen wielder,” said Alli. “If they speak French, I speak French. You don’t, so at the moment, I don’t.”

            “Right. That’s… less useful than it could be. I was just wondering what that kid called me.”

            “ _Chat Tigré_?” asked Alli. “Something Cat.”

            Sandy jerked her shoulder upwards, tossing the kwami into the air. “I understood that much,” she said as Alli floated back down. “Ach, I’ll look it up once we’re home.”

            Back in the cottage, she lit a fire in the hearth and flicked through her old French dictionary, scarcely opened since leaving school. “Tabby Cat,” she eventually announced. Alli, steadily working her way through a large slice of smoked ham, said nothing but pointed her ears forwards. “She called me Tabby Cat. I wonder what… No, this doesn’t have ‘wildcat’ in it. I’ll work that out later. So.” Sandy pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Alli, resting her elbows on the table and clasping her hands in front of her mouth. “Something those kids were talking about caught my attention. Who – or what – are Ladybug and Black Cat?”

            Alli looked to one side, still saying nothing as she finished the ham. When she had swallowed the last mouthful, she waved her tail dismissively. “Nothing for you to worry about. Other Miraculous – Miraculouses… Miraculi? They don’t concern you.”

            “But there _are_ others,” pressed Sandy.

            Alli lifted herself from the table to hover at eye level. “You’re _Wildcat_ ,” she said. “A solitary hunter in wild places.”

            “Right, you think I’d work as a park ranger if that didn’t appeal to me?”

            “My point is, Wildcat hunts alone. That’s how it’s always been, ever since the beginning. There have been many Wildcats since the badge was first cast. Celts. Romans. Picts. Vikings. Scots. None of them worked in groups, never sought out other wielders. The last before you was a Jacobite, but even _he_ didn’t join the rest of the army – he fought his war alone, from the forests and the mountains.”

            “I’m guessing that didn’t end well for him, since I found your Miraculous on the ground in the forest,” said Sandy drily.

            “Well… No. But it’s not as if _you_ need to worry about Hanoverian troops hunting you down! No.” Alli shook her head. “So, yes, there are others out there. But like I said, they’re nothing for you to worry about.”

            Sandy prodded her in the stomach. “I refuse to be lectured by a floating kitten.”

            “I am _far_ older than you,” said Alli, holding out her arms. “I am the very spirit of the hunt. When the first predators pursued their prey through ancient tropical seas, I existed.”

            “Don’t get all metaphysical on me,” said Sandy. “You may well be an ageless being from the dawn of time, but you’re still a cat.” Alli wrinkled her tiny snout. “Carrot and stick, then. Explain, and I’ll get in some of that venison you like. Don’t, and you can recharge on roadkill for the next month. It won’t be hard for me to scrape a dead badger or two off the tarmac.” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Your choice.”

            Alli did not answer for several seconds, scratching her neck and turning little circles midair. “That nice venison steak?” she asked.

            “The _expensive_ stuff.”

            Alli took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out in a rush. “ _Fine._ There are many other Miraculouses out there. Some are active, with chosen wielders. Others aren’t. The Earrings of the Ladybird and the Ring of the Black Cat are the oldest and most powerful of them all, granting creation and destruction respectively – and to balance each other out, their wielders have always worked as a pair. My guess is, they’ve gained new wielders somewhere in France. I can sense when another active Miraculous is nearby – what kind of hunt spirit would I be if I couldn’t? – but not over _that_ kind of distance.” Alli briefly turned herself upside down. “That’s all I really know about it. Who the current wielders are, _where_ in France they are… That, I can’t tell you.” She landed on the table and jabbed her arm at the nearer of Sandy’s hands. “I will hold you to that about the venison.”

            “I _never_ go back on a bribe,” said Sandy, splaying the fingers of her other hand against her chest. “Promise, next time I do a grocery run into Aviemore, I’ll buy all the venison you can eat.”

            Alli sighed happily. “It’s good to work with a wielder who keeps her word. Malcolm wasn’t nearly as honourable.”

            “Malcolm?”

            “The Jacobite,” said Alli. “Surly man and a bit grubby, but handy with a dirk.”

            “Huh. You’ll have to tell me about the Wildcats before me some time. Until then…” Sandy cracked her knuckles and eyed her computer. “I have a few things I need to look up.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happened in 1971: the [Cairngorm Plateau Disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorm_Plateau_Disaster).


	2. City of Light, Beast of Stone

            “Sandy?”

            There was no answer. Sandy’s attention remained firmly on her computer.

            Alli carefully wrapped the chunk of venison in cling film and rose from the worktop. “ _Sandy._ ” There was still no reply. Sandy glanced away from the screen and thoughtfully leafed through her diary. Scowling, Alli flew to hover between Sandy and the computer. “ _ALEXANDRA MACPHERSON._ ”

            Sandy jumped and almost knocked her mouse off the desk. “Oh, I regret telling you my full name,” she said. “Nobody ever uses it unless I’m in trouble.”

            “I’m your kwami,” said Alli. “I’d know your full name whether you told me or not. What are you doing that’s so engrossing?”

            “If you must know,” said Sandy, placing the mouse back on its mat, “I’m checking fares to Paris.”

            “ _Paris?_ ”

            “Not _now,_ but I’ve got some holiday time in a few weeks. We could fly direct from Aberdeen, but if I book far enough ahead it might actually be cheaper to take the train. What do you think?”

            “But you _hate_ cities,” said Alli, perching on top of the monitor. “You don’t even like going into Inverness, and I’m not sure if that even _counts_ as a city! How’re you going to handle one with _millions_ of people?”         

            “I’m sure I’ll manage,” said Sandy, rubbing the back of her neck.

            Alli narrowed her eyes. “What _else_ have you been looking up on there?”

            “Fine, you caught me.” Sandy clicked through to a different tab, sat back, and gestured towards the monitor. Alli leant down on all fours and turned herself upside down to look. “I ran a few internet searches and found this blog run by some teenager in Paris. It’s in French so I only understood bits and pieces, but some of the videos… Well, unless this kid knows someone who’s _very_ good at CGI, there’s some _weird_ stuff going on in Paris. Seems like there’s all these monsters and supervillains running around.”

            Alli hummed neutrally and flipped the right way up again.

            “But every time one pops up, these two heroes – Ladybug and Chat Noir – arrive on the scene and deal with it.”

            “Where there are heroes, there are villains,” said Alli. “You’re just lucky yours is usually the weather, or the odd poacher.”

            “And those are quite enough, thanks,” said Sandy. “There are other reasons I’d like to visit Paris – museums and such – but if we _do_ run into these two, well, it might be interesting to swap notes, eh?”

            Alli sighed. “What if there’s nothing for me to eat there?” she asked, changing tack. “Have you thought about that?” She sat up again and folded her arms.

            Sandy laughed. “Alli, it’s _Paris_. It’s like… an entire city of gourmet chefs. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to find you some nice ham or something.”

            “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

            “You’re welcome to try, but I doubt it,” said Sandy. “And if I end up hating it, you have my full permission to say you told me so.”

            Alli failed to come up with any particularly compelling arguments, and several weeks later – when the Highland snow had mostly thawed, and fewer people were in need of rescue from the mountains – Sandy walked out of Gare du Nord into a bright, chilly Parisian spring day.

            “I still think this was a bad idea,” grumbled Alli from inside Sandy’s hood. “There’s too much stone here.”

            Sandy hitched her heavy rucksack a little higher on her shoulders. “What do you think mountains are made of?” she asked.

            “It’s different when it’s covered in soil,” insisted Alli. “But this place…” Cautiously, she poked her head out from her hiding place, just far enough to see without risking being spotted. “I’ve never been to a city this busy,” she said, her voice subdued. “Cities this busy didn’t even _exist_ the last time I was active.” She shuddered and retreated back inside the hood.

            Sandy reached up to pat Alli through the fabric. To any passer-by, she just looked like she was scratching the side of her neck. “We’ll find a quiet corner somewhere,” she promised. “Come on, let’s get to the hotel.”

            The next couple of days passed without major event. Although Paris was still as bustling as any big city, the full tourist season had yet to descend and most of the main attractions were relatively quiet: they managed to get up the Eiffel Tower with a queue of only ten minutes, and had Les Invalides almost to themselves. Alli still took most opportunities to grumble about how crowded and penned-in everywhere was, but even she softened when Sandy took a detour from finding a boulangerie to buy her a slice of sirloin.

            They stopped to eat on a peaceful bench by the Seine, down a small flight of stone steps from street level and close to the water.

            “Whatever else there is to say about French cooking,” said Alli as she set about devouring the raw steak – twice the size of her own body – one bite at a time, “they know how to prepare beef. It just tastes so much better when it hasn’t been scorched brown all through.”

            “Or at all, in this case,” said Sandy, unwrapping her own snack. She took a bite and her eyes widened. “Oh, wow, you’ve got to try some of this,” she said through a mouthful of pastry. “This might be the best chocolatine I’ve ever had.”

            “I don’t eat _bread_ ,” said Alli with a scornful snort. “Didn’t the baker call it something else?” she asked after another bite of steak.

            “ _Pain au chocolat_ ,” said Sandy. “But I first had one on holiday in Bordeaux when I was little, and the local name stuck in my head.”

            “Hmm.” Alli finished her beef and lifted up from the bench to inspect a nearby poster, displayed on a signboard a little way along the riverside promenade. “Who _is_ this boy?” she asked, pointing. “I feel like we’ve seen a lot of posters of him in the last couple of days.”

            Sandy finished the pastry and got up to look. The poster depicted a handsome young teenager, smiling sunnily up at the butterfly-like logo of some design range or other as he posed to show off an outfit that, though suited for casual wear, had a general air of being ridiculously expensive. Now that Alli mentioned it, his face was familiar from countless other posters and magazine covers in the city.

            “No idea,” said Sandy with a shrug. “I’d ken if I followed fashion more, but as is… Likely some local celebrity.” She paused, rubbing her chin. “I feel like he’s probably called Chris,” she added. “He looks like a Chris.” Alli floated closer to the board, staring intently at the boy’s outstretched hand. Although he wore no other jewellery, a plain silver ring adorned one finger. “Alli? Something the matter?”

            “It’s nothing,” said Alli after the briefest hesitation. “Thought I saw something in the background, but no, it’s nothing. Don’t you think he looks a bit like Hamish?”

            Sandy took the tiniest step backwards at the name, a slight quiver coming into her breath. “I suppose,” she said once she had it back under control. “Similar hair and eyes, though his are a bit brighter than Hamish’s. Maybe they’ve touched up the poster, though.”

            Alli flew back to the bench and sat down, watching the river. Her eyes narrowed a little and her ears swivelled forwards. “Isn’t that boat moving a bit fast?”

            “Hm?” Sandy turned away from the poster. A tour boat motored downriver as quickly as it could go, churning the water in its wake. All of its passengers had crowded to the back rail, phones and cameras at the ready; at the front, the pilot hunched low over the wheel, occasionally casting a worried glance over his shoulder. “That _is_ weird,” said Sandy, folding her arms. “You’d think all their photos would come out in a blur at that speed. I – wait.”

            Alli cocked her head. “You hear it too, then?”

            From upriver came a peculiar sound, like a person trying to wade through a stream but magnified a thousandfold. Someone crossing the nearest bridge paused, looked upstream, and promptly sprinted for the safety of dry land. Someone else, further away, let out a high-pitched scream.

            Alli flew to perch on Sandy’s shoulder just as something colossal gave a roar like a grinding landslide and shoved through the bridge with no more effort than walking through a cobweb. It walked on four legs, up to its shoulders in the river, but still towered some fifty feet above the surface. Fragments of the bridge fell from its back as it reared up on its hind legs and waded forwards, reaching out for the boat with grasping claws. Pointed ears swivelled with a stony grating sound; a long tail lifted from beneath the water. Some kind of gigantic animated statue, the thing resembled nothing less than one of Notre-Dame’s famous grotesques writ absurdly large.

            “OK, that happened,” said Sandy as the monster continued to chase the boat downriver.

            “Yes,” said Alli, climbing up to the top of Sandy’s head. “This is…”

            “Apparently normal for Paris, if that blog is to be believed,” said Sandy, folding her arms.

            “That thing’s scent…” said Alli slowly.

            “I couldn’t smell anything,” said Sandy. “Not above the river itself.”

            “Well, not a _scent_ exactly,” Alli corrected herself. “But its… You know what you sense when you listen? Not exactly sound, not really any of the normal senses, just a kind of, of _awareness_ of living things, of their energy, their aura?”

            “Kind of a New Age way of putting it, but aye.”

            “That thing… It’s been a long time since I last encountered one, long before I was last active, but I could _swear_ that creature had the energy of a Butterfly Champion. It’s not a feeling you forget. But why is one of them terrorising Paris?”

            “No idea,” said Sandy. Questions of exactly what a Butterfly Champion was would have to wait; the creature’s stone talons had closed around the stern of the boat, gradually lifting it from the water as the passengers screamed. “But those people need our help. Alli, the hunt is on!”

            Light flared and faded, and Wildcat sprinted along the river bank. She went into a skid, claws raising sparks from the pavement, looped one end of her rope around a bollard, and leapt. With a thump, she landed on the deck and tied the rope around the nearest rail. A dozen frightened tourists backed away from her, even as the stone creature lifted the stern higher.

            Wildcat pointed towards the bank, raising her voice to be heard over the rush of water and the scrape of stone. “Follow the rope, get to dry land! _Allez!_ ” She waited a few more seconds, watching as the passengers splashed into the water and made for the bank. Some swam the distance; others towed themselves hand-over-hand along the rope. Soon only one small boy was left on deck, biting his lip as his father encouraged him to jump.

            The monster swung an enraged claw as its prey escaped. Smoke began to rise from the engine as the boards shattered under its onslaught; Wildcat ducked beneath the huge stone hand, grabbed the boy around his waist, and sprang back to the river bank an instant before flames began to lick through the gaping holes in the deck. Sodden, shivering tourists heaved themselves from the water. The boy’s father ran to collect his son, nodding a brief thanks before dropping to his knees and dragging the boy into his arms. A siren began to wail nearby

            A flash of red; a streak of black. Two figures leapt from a rooftop with impossible grace, arcing high above pavement and river to land on the monster’s shoulders. It roared again, flailing claws and tail in an attempt to swat them away – but this time, there were words among the stony shrieks.

            “ _Je suis la Gargouille! Vous ne pouvez pas m'arrêter!_ ” It dropped back to all fours, water flying in all directions, and lashed out towards the tourists. Stone talons scraped deep gouges into the pavement. Stone eyes fixed on one young woman, who gasped and backed away. The other great claw reached out for her.

            In a flash, something tiny swung around the outstretched limb; a wire wrapped around the talons and dragged them back, pulled taut by the figure in red. La Gargouille’s head swivelled in place, eyes narrowing. Wildcat grabbed the monster’s apparent target, hefted the woman onto her shoulder, and ran for it. One leap brought them back up to street level; a second took them down into a Metro station. Without slowing, Wildcat vaulted the nearest ticket barrier, deposited the woman at the top of an escalator, and pointed firmly down it. She nodded, stood, and half-ran, half-fell down towards the platform, skittering onto a train moments before it pulled away.

            Outside, la Gargouille roared again. Wildcat turned towards the sound, only then noticing the stares of everyone else in the station.

            “ _Bonjour_ ,” said Wildcat after several seconds of awkward silence.

            “Akuma?” asked the man at the ticket desk. Wildcat just shrugged. He shrugged back with a sympathetic nod.

            A bizarre scene met her when she climbed back to the street. La Gargouille had left the river, trailing water along the road and leaving craters in the tarmac, but it hadn’t got far: one foreleg was just gone, crumbled to dust from the elbow down, and both hind legs were entangled in a web of polka-dotted rope along with three bicycles and a scooter, their wheels sliding la Gargouille’s feet from under it with every attempted step. Finally, with one last roar, the monster keeled over and crashed to the ground in a cloud of stone dust, one ear cracking away from its head and its tail fracturing behind it.

            The two heroes slid down from its back to the sound of cheering. Ladybug – it could be no one else – prised some small object from la Gargouille’s brow and crushed it between her hands, releasing a little black butterfly into the air; with practised ease, she recaptured it in an amulet and a gleaming white butterfly fluttered away in its place. La Gargouille vanished in a cloud of purple-black fog, leaving in its place a very confused middle-aged woman who sat up, rubbing her head, as Ladybug bent to gather up the rope.

            Very suddenly, Wildcat found herself staring into the lens of a camera phone, uncomfortably close and clutched in the hands of a grinning, bespectacled teenage girl speaking rapidly and at length in a torrent of incomprehensible French. Wildcat backed away until her shoulders hit the metal of a lamppost. A few more curious bystanders joined the fray, shoving closer behind the young camerawoman. It was testament to how used the Parisians had become to their city’s strange events that they were not distracted when something flashed through the sky and the craters in the road vanished without a trace.

            The girl paused for breath, but did not lower her phone. If anything, she moved it even closer.

            The instinct of a cornered animal kicked in. Wildcat hissed, baring her fangs and unsheathing the steel claws on her gloves; the girl’s eyes widened behind her thick-rimmed glasses and she took a step back, leaving just enough space for Wildcat to make her escape. Tail lashing behind her, she scrambled up the lamppost and jumped for the safety of the rooftop, ducking behind a chimney and out of sight from the ground. Sighing, she sat down with her back to the brickwork and closed her eyes, letting her claws slide back into their sheaths.

            Footsteps pattered lightly on the tiles, and she opened her eyes again. The heroes of Paris stood over her. Chat Noir, his silver staff across his shoulders and his tail-belt swaying behind him, merely looked curious, but Ladybug’s eyes held more suspicion.

            “ _Qui êtes-vous?_ ” she asked, twirling her amulet – not an amulet, a _yoyo_ – on its wire.

            Wildcat raised a hand. “ _Je ne parle pas français. Pardon._ ”

            “Ah, _vous êtes anglais,_ ” said Chat Noir, nodding.

            She understood that much and, bracing her hands on her knees, got to her feet. “ _É-coss-ais,_ ” she quietly and firmly corrected him.

            “… _Écossais._ _Désolé_ _._ ”

            “Who are you?” repeated Ladybug.

            Wildcat did not immediately answer, instead taking a few seconds to look them both up and down. Chat Noir, she noticed with hidden amusement, bore some small resemblance to her beyond the feline motif: they both had blonde hair and green eyes, although his were more of a warm gold and bright peridot to her tawny dun and pale jade. She drew herself up to her full height, rolling her shoulders back, and froze at a sudden new realisation.

            Neither of the pair even reached her chin. Her mouth hung slightly open for another few moments before she remembered that she had been asked a question. “Wildcat,” she said, shaking her head to clear it. “I’m Wildcat.”

            They clearly had more questions, but asking them would have to wait: Ladybug had barely opened her mouth when the sharp bleeping of a transformation about to expire interrupted her and, wide-eyed, she clamped both hands over her ears instead. Chat Noir cautiously glanced at the ring on his right hand.

            Wildcat turned her back, just in case. “I’ll be in the city for a few more days,” she said without looking around. “I’m staying up near Montmartre if you want to talk.”

            They held a muttered conference in French. Part of it seemed, for whatever reason, to be about foxes.

            “We’ll look for you later,” said Ladybug, some of the suspicion leaving her voice. “We have to go.”

            Wildcat lifted a hand, and did not look back until the sound of their footsteps had faded beneath the city’s general background noise. She sighed and sat down beside the chimney again. “The hunt is over,” she said.

            “You know you’re going to have to transform again to get down,” said Alli.

            Sandy nodded and handed her a cocktail sausage from the pack in her satchel. “I had to bounce off someone,” she said. “You’re really my only option.”

            Alli tossed the sausage in the air and caught it in her mouth. “I thought you handled that well,” she said.

            “What, even snarling at that girl?” asked Sandy.

            Alli shrugged. “She should know not to corner a wildcat.”

            “Still. I should probably apologise if I see her again. You ken I get flustered with cameras pointed at me.” Sandy sighed again. “So, those were the famous protectors of Paris.”

            “So it would seem.”

            “Where do you suppose they got their Miraculouses?”         

            “Well…” Alli swayed midair. “My guess is they were given them. Last I knew of the ring and the earrings, they were in the care of some monks of some sort. Their guardians must have thought they’d be better off getting used – especially if the Butterfly has gone rogue.”

            Sandy took a deep breath, scowling. “Alli, they’re _kids!_ They should be worrying about, about kid stuff! School! Video games! Crushes! Not whether they’re going to be murdered by a supervillain!” She fell silent again, breathing hard.

            Alli folded her arms and curled her tail around her feet. “So what are you going to do?”

            Sandy stood up, still half behind the chimney, and looked back towards the Seine. Even the bridge la Gargouille had bulldozed through was intact again. “Well, if it doesn’t bother _them_ , what right do I have to interfere? They’re clearly good at it, and if… it’s the Ladybird that does creation, you said?” Alli nodded. “If that Miraculous can restore something like that good as new, it’s obviously dizzyingly powerful.”

            “Much more than us,” Alli quietly agreed.

            “Still… you worry for the kids. God knows I spend enough time rescuing them back home.” She linked her fingers and stretched both arms above her head. “If they need help, I’m sure they’ll find us somehow,” she said after a long, thoughtful pause. “They have to know this city like the back of their hand with all the time they spend saving it. Anyway, I still want to check out that natural history museum we found the leaflet for. C’mon, Alli – the hunt is on.”


	3. Cats on the Roof

            The view from the gable of Sacré-Coeur was quite something. Paris stretched out for miles, and even in the growing dusk Wildcat could pick out the landmarks she had visited. There, the gothic splendour of Notre-Dame and the distinctive façade of the Musée d’Orsay; further along, the golden dome of Les Invalides and, of course, the massive iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower, illuminating as the sky darkened.

            Wildcat closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and listened. The sheer onslaught of _life_ on her senses almost knocked her from her perch. Humans, millions of them, but by no means humans alone – mice, rats, cats, dogs, pigeons, even a few falcons, to say nothing of the more exotic animals in the zoo and the countless tiny swarming creatures beneath the pavements and the floorboards, scuttling through tunnels ancient and modern. Grimacing, Wildcat pulled the awareness closed again, folding her cat’s ears flat against her head, but not before picking up on something new and very strange behind her. Slowly she listened again, careful not to take in the whole city this time; the area of the cathedral alone was bearable. The new presence drew a little closer.

            It made no sound beyond a faint tapping of footsteps on the roof and carried no clear scent, but it touched on Wildcat’s senses like a dark, roiling cloud, unspeakably ancient and imbued with terrifying power, carrying with it not just the crackle of fire and the roar of an avalanche but also the stink of rot and the creep of rust; a pure essence of destruction in all its forms, both the rapid and violent and the slow and insidious. And yet beneath it there was something else, something quick and curious with a kindness to it wholly at odds with the dark power – something, also, very young. Wildcat did not look around until the presence came to a halt a little above, back, and to her right, and she glanced up.

            Chat Noir perched on a ledge at the base of a small dome, watching her.

            “ _Parlez vous anglais?_ ” she asked.

            “Yes.” He hopped down from the ledge to crouch a few feet away, as lightly as – well, a cat.

            “No Ladybug with you?”

            “No.” He moved a little closer, still on all fours. “I come out by myself sometimes, when we aren’t on patrol,” he explained. “I like the freedom.” His English was excellent; though still clearly not a native speaker, he only kept a hint of a French accent.

            Wildcat nodded, looking out at the cityscape. “I know the feeling.”

            They both remained quiet for a while, watching the city lights. Chat Noir was the first to break the silence. “I didn’t know there was another Cat Miraculous.”

            “Neither did I until recently,” said Wildcat. “Some kids I rescued back in the mountains mentioned you and Ladybug. My kwami filled me in about the rest.”

            “What’s your kwami’s name?”

            “Alli. Yours?”

            “Plagg.” He sat down beside her, dangling his legs over the edge of the gable. “You _do_ have a Miraculous, then.”

            “You thought maybe a druid made me a magic potion?”

            He stifled a snort of laughter. “An akuma pretended to be a hero once,” he explained. “Neither of us like liars.”

            “Understandable.”

            “You didn’t try to fight la Gargouille,” he said, cocking his head.

            “No, I didn’t.” Wildcat smiled. “Search and rescue is more my thing,” she said. “We don’t have many supervillains in the Highlands, but there’s no shortage of bad weather and unlucky walkers. So I don’t usually fight – unless I have to intimidate a poacher – but getting civilians out of harm’s way? That, I can do.”

            Chat Noir suddenly grinned, showing entirely human teeth a far cry from the pointed canines that Alli granted Wildcat. “One cat to another, sounds like you’re still a _paw_ -sitive force!”

            Wildcat stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing. “Oh, that was _terrible._ ” But it had served as an ice-breaker nonetheless. “You two aren’t so bad yourself, from the way you took down that stone thing, but I wouldn’t say we’ve much in common cat-wise. You’re like a sleek little witch’s cat; I’m more of a big scruffy tabby.”

            “Little!”

            “Ach, give it a year or two and you’ll shoot right up.” She paused, watching a helicopter pass the Eiffel Tower. “My brother did. So, you’re the legendary Chat Noir, wielder of the Cataclysm?”

            He gave a cocky grin and flexed his right hand, showing off the black ring on his finger. “That’s me. One touch of my claws, and they have to start from _scratch_.”

            Wildcat rolled her eyes. “Seems like an odd choice, to be honest.”

            “Huh?”

            “Well, why’s a symbol of good luck the one leaving destruction in his wake?”

            “…Black cats are _bad_ luck.”

            “No!” Wildcat got to her feet, sliding out the claws on her boots for better traction on the smooth marble. Chat Noir reflexively leant away from the steel hooks and stretched his legs out in front, looking thoughtfully down at his own clawless toecaps. “A black cat crossing your path brings good fortune. Doesn’t everyone know that?”

            He looked up at her in uncharacteristic perplexion and slowly shook his head.

            “Huh. Maybe that’s just a Scottish tradition.” She shrugged and tucked her thumbs into her belt, bouncing idly on the balls of her feet. “So, I feel like I’ve seen a fair bit of Tourist Paris the last couple of days,” she said, changing the subject. “Think you could show me a bit of Miraculous Paris?”

            He sprang back onto his feet, his grin returning. Even without claws, his boots had a perfect grip on the roof underfoot. “If you can keep up!”

            Wildcat briefly showed her fangs. “I’ve kept pace with reindeer in a blizzard,” she said. “A wee kitten like you shouldn’t give me too much trouble.”

            This was an optimistic statement. After a breakneck sprint across Paris, making death- and gravity-defying leaps high above busy roads, Wildcat finally caught up with him on a rooftop overlooking the Seine.

            He grinned.

            “Not a word,” said Wildcat, lifting one finger and inwardly thanking Alli’s magic that she wasn’t out of breath; she wasn’t sure her dignity could have taken it. “You’re like half my size and you ken the terrain. You were always going to win that race.”

            They sat down on the edge of the roof to watch the boats pass by.

            “This is what I love about having the Miraculous,” said Chat Noir. “Nobody else gets to see Paris from this angle, not like this.”

            “Not so much scrambling about on rooftops where I’m from,” said Wildcat, hanging her feet over the edge. “Not many rooftops that need scrambled on, though. Cliffs, trees, the occasional railway track, but not many rooftops. But you’re right, it’s better up here. Above the crowds, not getting jostled every step…”

            “You said you’re from Scotland?”

            Wildcat nodded. “From the Highlands – the Cairngorms, if you want to be more specific. I’m a bit of a local celebrity there,” she added, laying a hand on her chest with a grin. “I’ve even given talks once or twice, advising people how to stay safe on the hills.” She sighed. “And I _still_ have to run out and fetch people who’ve got into trouble.”

            “And nobody tries to take your Miraculous?”

            “What? No, of course not.”

            Chat Noir watched a tour boat sail past, its passengers all eagerly photographing the city lights. “It must be nice,” he said after a few minutes. “To just be able to enjoy your powers without an akuma trying to take them.”

            “That monster the other day,” said Wildcat. “That happens a lot here?”

            “Not every day,” he assured her. “Sometimes there’s a week or two with nothing. But… it happens a lot, yes. I couldn’t do it without Ladybug. Literally! Only she can _really_ stop the akumas.” He paused. “Are there other Miraculouses in Scotland?”

            “Not that I know of. I don’t think so – my kwami’s always been very clear that Wildcat hunts alone. Still, I work with Mountain Rescue sometimes if there’s a big operation. Not even a Miraculous lets you cover the whole of the Cairngorms.” She followed the boat’s progress with her eyes. “Not even a Miraculous lets you save everyone.”

            Chat Noir gave her an odd look at that, but didn’t voice whatever thought had struck him.

            Wildcat changed the subject. “Listen, I’ve got a question. It’s been on my mind since I first came face-to-face with the pair of you. You’re welcome not to answer, mind, but I’ve got to ask… Are you as young as you look?”

            The look on his face, reminiscent of a stag on the A9, was all the answer she needed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your parents,” she said, half laughing.

            A strangely mournful, lonely expression flicked over his features, replaced by his usual grin after an instant. “Pfft,” he said. “A curfew? You’ve got to be _kitten_ me.”

            “Your English is very good, by the way,” said Wildcat. “Not everyone can pun in their second language.”

            “Thanks – I’ve had a lot of _purr_ -actice.”

            “Do you make this many puns when you’re actually fighting?”

            “No, I make even more.” He laced his fingers and stretched both arms out in front of himself. “Your search-and-rescue back in Scotland – is that your power, like Cataclysm or Lucky Charm?”

            “More or less. Think of it like a sort of… super-tracking. I can’t conjure or destroy or even really _influence_ anything, except physically, but if I concentrate I have a certain… _awareness_ of living things – their scent, their essence, call it what you like – that tells me where they are. Everything else is the standard strength, agility and stamina that any Miraculous holder has.”

            “Could you find le Papillon?” he asked eagerly.

            “Who?” He quickly explained. “Ah. No.” The cat-ears clipped to his hair went down sadly. “Well, it’s not that I couldn’t _sense_ him,” Wildcat amended. “Believe me, I’d like to give you two a hand. He sounds like the sort of person I could really get my claws into, and you shouldn’t have to deal with this by yourselves on top of whatever else Parisian kids usually have on their plates. But to pick one person out of a city of millions?” She shook her head. “I’d have to ken what I was looking for first, if I could even stand it enough to find him.”

            “Oh.” Chat Noir looked down at his feet.

            “Sorry to disappoint.”

            He shrugged. “Ladybug would need to know you better first anyway.”

            “She sounds like a sensible one, your Ladybug.”

            “She’s amazing,” he sighed. His eyes lost their focus for a moment and he gazed dreamily into space, for all the world like any other lovesick teenager. His smile faded, replaced by an expression of melancholy vagueness.

            _Oh, you poor besotted kitten._ “Well, in the meantime, I could use some insider knowledge,” said Wildcat. “Where, in all of Paris, would you say does the best croissants?”

            The look he shot her suggested that he immediately knew she was trying to change the subject, but that he appreciated the distraction. “That’s easy,” he said, his grin reappearing as quickly as a lightbulb switching on. “Follow me.”

            Ten more minutes of leaping across rooftops brought them to a gable overlooking a small bakery by the river. “Down there,” he said, pointing emphatically at the shop with its black-and-gold windows and cute little roof terrace. “Any clever alley cat learns all the best spots to catch a bite,” he said, perching on the very edge of the gable, “but whether you want a croissant, a baguette or a macaron… If you want the best, you come here.”

            _Alley cat?_ Wildcat shaded her eyes. “Oh, aye. I bought a chocolatine there the other day. Nice to hear I had good taste.”

            A couple of pyjama-clad teenage girls climbed onto the roof terrace through a trapdoor, talking – if their gestures were any indication – about the video one of them had on her phone. Chat Noir hid behind a chimney before either of them could glance up. Wildcat joined him after another moment, wincing as she recognised one of the girls as the young camerawoman from the day of la Gargouille. She had a nasty feeling about the subject of the video as well, and hunkered down with her back to the chimney. “You ken that pair?” she asked.

            He nodded. “Yes, they’re…” He paused for several seconds before he finally settled on “Friends. I – I don’t want them to think I’m spying on them.”

            “Right.” Wildcat pushed her hood back and ran her claws through her hair. “The redhead, the one with the glasses. The other day, after la Gargouille – she tried to film me.”

            He nodded again, a little ruefully. “Her Ladyblog is Paris’s main source of superhero news.”

            “Oh, _she’s_ who runs that website? Impressive, there’s some decent web design there. Anyway…” Wildcat pulled her hood back up, casting her face back into shadow. “With hindsight, she probably just wanted a quick interview, but… my French is only good enough to just about muddle through the pleasantries and I… kind of panicked. That happens sometimes, when I’m faced with a crowd or with cameras, even if they’re speaking English. Pure instinct, but still. I think I scared her. Can you apologise for me if you see her?” She peeked back around the chimney. Both girls had sat down to huddle around the phone screen. “I’d jump down there and do it myself now, buuuut I’d probably just scare her even worse. They know you, and between the stripes and the fangs I’m a bit more feral-looking. Chances are they’d think I was one of your monsters.”

            “Akumas.”

            “Aye, akumas. I’d rather not have anyone jump off a roof at the sight of me, if it’s all the same to you.”

            “That’s fair.”

            “Anyway.” Wildcat cracked her knuckles and cocked her head, listening as a bell somewhere chimed the hour. “Jings, is that the time? Later than I thought it was. I, uh… Listen. Have you got somewhere safe to sleep tonight?”

            “What?”

            “Because if not, I don’t mind giving you the cash to find a bed in a hostel for the night, or even a room in a B&B…”

            He just stared at her for a few seconds, blinking, until the penny dropped. “Oh! You thought – no, I have a house.”

            “Oh.” Wildcat half-laughed, half-sighed her relief. “Sorry, it’s just when you called yourself an alley cat, I thought that maybe – but you’re OK. Good. Miraculous or not, I didn’t like the idea of you having to kip in a skip somewhere.”

            “No, I have a house,” he repeated, and gave a small, shy smile very different to the confident grin. “But – thank you for the offer.” He stretched each arm one by one and rocked his head from side to side, working the kinks out of his neck. “I _do_ have – stuff going on tomorrow,” he admitted. “I should probably go and get some sleep.”

            Wildcat nodded and touched two fingers to her forehead in a lazy salute. “Whatever my kwami says about Wildcat working alone, it’s been nice talking to you, Chat Noir.”

            That little smile again. “I’ll talk to Ladybug about you.” And with that he was gone, vaulting away to the next rooftop and into the night.

            “He’s a sweet kid,” said Wildcat to nobody in particular, before she stood up to make her way back to the little Montmartre hotel. Across the roofs, up a wall, and in through the window of her room; easy. She sat down on the edge of the bed with a small bounce and released the transformation.

            Alli folded her arms and stared at her.

            “All right, what’s that look for?” asked Sandy.        

            “What are you doing?”

            “Having a friendly conversation with a fellow Miraculous wielder.”

            Alli frowned and pushed herself up to hover eye-to-eye with her chosen. “And the fact that said wielder is a blonde, green-eyed teenager much like Hamish is irrelevant?”

            Sandy scrunched up her nose and did not answer.

            “He’s not your little brother, Sandy,” said Alli more gently.

            “I ken that.”

            “Do you?”

            “Well… My head does. Heart’s still working on it. Even if he’s got a house to go back to, did you see his face when I mentioned his parents? I daresay the poor kid could use a big sister.”

            “I daresay he could,” said Alli. “But we’re going back to Scotland in a couple of days.”

            “Closer to three.”

            “Two, three, it doesn’t affect my point. Your ingrained need to rescue kids aside, you can’t just make yourself a part of someone’s life only to abandon them a few days later. That’s not fair.”

            Sandy sighed. “No. No, you’re right. Look, if he or Ladybug or both of them want to talk again I won’t chase them off, but I’ll give you this much: I won’t go looking for them.”

            Alli gave her a long, careful stare for a few more seconds before she nodded. “I can live with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alli's name, by the way, is derived from 'allaidh', Gaelic for 'wild'. Despite this, the Gaelic for 'wildcat' is 'cat fiadhaich'.


	4. Lost Boy

            Whatever Chat Noir had been doing the following day, it did not come up in the local evening papers; as far as Sandy could make out through the language barrier, they were more concerned with a dramatic spat between two high-end fashion designers. Apparently one of them had been very scathing about the other’s line of sleepwear. She shook her head and, after a while admiring the stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle and a quick dinner in a nearby café, returned to the hotel for an early night. The previous evening’s running about on rooftops had caught up with her.  

            In the middle of the night, her eyes snapped open at the sound of voices in her room, every muscle tensing for a fight before she registered that one of the voices was Alli’s.

            “We’ve all lost wielders, Tikki. That just comes with immortality.”

            The other much higher voice replied. “But to lose him while transformed… I know you’ve never been close to the rest of us, but we all felt that backlash – even Plagg, though he won’t admit it. I can’t even imagine what it was like for you.”

            “I’m just… not as powerful as you. I can’t make my chosen invulnerable. _Tough_ , yes – this one’s taken falls that would’ve broken half her bones without me – but… I can’t stop bullets.” A long silence, before, much more quietly: “I felt it, you know. It took a while longer than it should have, with that toughness. He kept fighting, refused to release the transformation even when the soldiers had him totally surrounded. And I felt every moment of it, until… until our link finally shattered.” Gruffer and louder: “Besides, it was a long time ago. He’s gone. I have a new Wildcat to look after now.”

            “I’m so sorry, Alli. If only the Guardians had known…”

            “Then they’d have locked me away in the box to keep me ‘safe’. I’d rather lie dormant on the forest floor for centuries than that.” A pause. “No offence to you or the other kwamis, but…”

            “No, you wouldn’t do well in the box,” agreed Tikki. “You’re too wild.”

            “Is this a conversation you mind me hearing?” asked Sandy. “Because I don’t know how much longer I can pretend to be asleep.”

            Alli swore under her breath, to a faint giggle from Tikki. Sandy rolled over and sat up. The little red-and-black creature on the bedside table was smaller than Alli and with slightly different proportions – a bigger head on a more delicate body – but was still unmistakeably a kwami.

            “You must be the Ladybird Kwami,” said Sandy.

            She bobbed her head in a polite bow. “Yes. My name is Tikki.”

            “Honoured. I’d introduce Alli, but you seem to know her already.”

            “Yes.” Tikki sighed and lifted off the table to float at face level. “Ladybug wants to talk to you. She’s waiting on the roof.”

            Sandy nodded. “OK. I’ll give you two a coupla minutes to get changed and I’ll be right up.”

            Tikki nodded back, phased through the glass of the closed window, and disappeared upwards.

            “You never told me that the Wildcat before me died _while transformed_ ,” said Sandy quietly. “If you see and feel everything your wielder does… God. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have joked about him if I’d known.”

            “I don’t want to talk about this,” muttered Alli, not looking at her. “Besides. It was a long time ago.”

            “For a human, aye – but two hundred and seventy-odd years must be like the blink of an eye to a kwami.”

            Alli turned her back. “Get dressed,” she said, her tone making it very clear that the conversation was over. “This sounds important.”

            “Hm. If you say so.”

            A couple of minutes later, Wildcat scrambled up a drainpipe to the hotel roof. As promised Ladybug was waiting there, wringing her hands as she paced back and forth.

            “A’right,” said Wildcat, suppressing the urge to give her a hug. “What’s up?”

            “There’s been another akuma,” she said. She spoke English with a stronger Parisian accent than Chat Noir, but it was still far better than Wildcat’s French. “It – it appeared earlier tonight, roaring about how Lindormez would have revenge, grabbed a – a boy from his bedroom, then it disappeared! I tried to follow it, but it breathed out a purple mist that filled the street, putting everyone but me to sleep, and when it cleared there was no sign of it! I-” She broke off and took a few deep breaths to steady herself. “I think the Lucky Charm told me to come and find you.”

            Wildcat scratched her neck, nodding. “Chat Noir told you about me?”

            “I haven’t seen him since yesterday. He’s not answering when I call him.”

            “Right. OK. OK. Let me think.” Wildcat crouched down and rubbed her head with both hands. “You beat the akuma, everything goes back to normal, right?” she said, thinking aloud. “So we should focus on finding the akuma. But I don’t know what to look for in an akuma. Alli says they have a distinct aura, but I don’t know what it feels like – I didn’t think to check while you were fighting la Gargouille the other day, I didn’t think I _needed_ to with it standing right there all obvious, and there’s so much other stuff in Paris how am I to know what’s a monster and what’s normal here? Right. So we find the boy instead. Chances are the akuma will be nearby anyway.” Wildcat straightened up. “Tell me about the boy.”

            “It’s Adrien Agreste.” She said this as if it explained everything. Maybe to her it did.

            “Who?”

            Ladybug looked at her as if she had grown an extra head. “Adrien Agreste! The son of Gabriel Agreste, the most famous fashion designer in France!”

            “I don’t really follow fashion.”

            Now the head seemed to have sprouted antlers. Ladybug sighed and flipped open her yoyo like a clamshell, revealing a small video screen inside. “Here.” The screen showed a picture of a blonde, green-eyed teenage boy, smiling demurely at the camera.

            “Oh, it’s him from the posters,” said Wildcat. Her tail flicked restlessly from side to side, the _kid in danger_ alarm blaring in her head. “Right. Aye. OK. I can track him down for you, but – like with the akuma, I need to know what I’m looking for. Millions of humans in Paris and they all feel a bit different, but _en masse_ it’s hard to pick one out of the scrum, ye ken? Do you have something of his, something personal that would carry a, a scent, sort of, a bit of who he is?”

            “Uh…”

            “I don’t mean that literally,” she added. “When I say personal, I mean something like a diary, not his socks.”

            “I don’t,” said Ladybug quietly. “But I know where you might find something.”

            “Lead the way.”

            The boy’s house was so big it could easily have passed for a small hotel, surrounded by a high wall and sturdy gates. They had not kept out the night’s assailant: deep gouges marked the outside of one wall like clawmarks on a cat’s favourite scratching post and carried on across the small courtyard to the house itself and up to a huge, shattered window. A broad scuffmark like a snake’s trail ran between the claws. The entire building was completely surrounded by police cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

            “Fair hotchin’ down there, eh?” commented Wildcat from their perch on the roof above the broken window.

            “What?”

            “Never mind. This is his room?”

            “Yes, just under us.”

            “Right. Let’s have a wee look-see, then.” She caught hold of the gutter in one hand and swung herself down and through the window, narrowly avoiding the broken glass itself to land heavily on the floor inside. Ladybug followed with considerably more grace.

            “Jesus Christ,” said Wildcat, straightening up to stare around at the room’s luxuries from the climbing wall to the massive television. “Talk about a gilded cage or what?”

            “You can see it too, then,” said Ladybug.

            “Oh, aye. I’d kill for that bookcase, mind, but with everything else…” She ran her fingertip along the top of one computer monitor. “A kid should be able to go _out_ every once in a while.”

            “He goes to school,” said Ladybug as Wildcat clambered up to the second level for a closer look at the bookshelves. “And to photoshoots, fencing class, Chinese lessons…”

            “Aye, there’s that,” said Wildcat, thumbing through a much-read volume of _Fullmetal Alchemist_. “But can he take a bus with some pals and get out of the city for a day?”

            “Only if he sneaks out,” said Ladybug, sighing.

            “This whole room… For all the time he must spend here, it’s weirdly impersonal, you know? It’s all… It feels like it was picked out _for_ him, not _by_ him. Aye, he _sleeps_ here, but is it _his?_ Sorry, I know I’m getting philosophical. There should be enough here altogether to let me pick up his trail.” She climbed back down to rejoin Ladybug by the desk. “A’right, here goes.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath through her nose, and listened. Ladybug’s aura battered on her senses, equal and opposite to Chat Noir’s – creation rather than destruction, in all its forms from the flick of an artist’s hand to the roar at the heart of a star, overlying a sense of creativity entirely the girl’s own and righteous kindness tempered with worry. Wildcat did her best to block it out and focus on the rest of the room. The feel of its usual inhabitant was strange, as if it merely dusted the surfaces rather than sank into the fabric, but it was there, a sense of a kind and curious yet lonely young man. There was also something oddly familiar about it, though Wildcat couldn’t say where she had come across it before.

            “I think I have it,” she said out loud. She listened harder, taking in the whole of the mansion. The police were leaving, but the house was far from abandoned. Downstairs – a cook at work in the kitchen. A woman a little older than Wildcat, all efficiency trying to hide concern. A big man, his stoicism doing the same. The boy’s father in his study, desperate worry and… guilt? No sign of the boy himself, not in the house or any of those around it. Wildcat gritted her teeth, steeled herself, and cast her awareness wide enough to take in the whole city. Immediately she fell to her knees, clutching her head in both hands. Ladybug started forwards, reaching out to steady her, but she waved her away. “No – stay back. I know what I’m doing, it’s just… it’s a lot. God, I’m going to have such a headache after this.”

            People, millions of people, doing all the things that people do, on top of every other lifeform big and small in the city of Paris, all of them clamouring for her attention. Wildcat screwed her eyes closed and dug her claws in to the sides of her head, the physical pain distracting from the mental long enough to try and find one single boy amongst the throng. Young. Kind. Clever. Curious. Lonely. _There._

Wildcat opened her eyes. “I’ve got him.”

            “You found him! Where?”

            Wildcat shoved both hands under her hood and ran her claws through her hair. “That way,” she said, nodding in the direction she meant. “Within the city. Maybe a couple of miles away. Feels… underground. Are there any underground tunnels in the city?”

            Ladybug laughed despite her worry. “You’re asking that in _Paris?_ There’s the Metro, the sewers, the catacombs …”

            “Typical. Well, _getting_ to him might be tricky in that case, but at least we know where he _is_.” Wildcat got to her feet and, after a moment’s hesitation, laid a hand on Ladybug’s shoulder. “We’ll get him out safely,” she promised. “Let’s go.”


	5. The Serpent beneath the Earth

            “We might be able to narrow it down,” said Ladybug as they ran. “Could you feel what sort of ‘underground’ it was? Old? Modern?” She gulped and reluctantly added, “Clean?”

            “Old,” said Wildcat without breaking stride. “Very old. Dusty. _Not_ full of sewage.”

            “He must be in the catacombs.”

            “Heh, _cat_ acombs.”

            Ladybug gave her a deeply unimpressed look, but kept running. “This way. I know how to get down there.”

            They weren’t the first to find it. The small building covering the catacombs’ entrance had been half-demolished, its door flattened off its hinges and the surrounding walls crumbling as something huge forced its way through and down into the tunnels below. Claws had dug into the stone to either side of a wide scuffmark as it forced itself through, just like at the Agreste mansion. A security guard slumped on the pavement, out cold amidst a cloud of purple mist.

            “Looks like some kind of… sleeping gas,” said Wildcat, snapping her fingers by the man’s ear to no affect.

            “That’s what the akuma breathed out,” said Ladybug.

            “You saw it before it disappeared, then?”

            She nodded. “It was like… like a dragon, a huge dragon, but with no wings and just two arms.”

            “And its breath puts people to sleep,” said Wildcat. “Except us, it seems. Well, I know the transformation keeps fatigue at bay – maybe it counteracts sleeping drugs as well.”

            They both stared down into the darkness. Ladybug flicked a switch by the top of the stairs, but only a dim, flickering light appeared in the tunnel, barely enough to see by without the eyes of a cat.

            “It must be like a rabbit warren down there,” said Wildcat, taking her rope from around her chest. “Here. You know the story of Theseus?”

            Ladybug nodded and tied one end of the rope around a railing. “Let’s go.”

            They climbed down into the tunnel, Wildcat paying the rope out as they went. Every footstep sounded deafening through the silence, otherwise broken only by the faint hum of the electric lights. Shadowy rows of skulls watched them from shelves on either side of the tunnel. Ladybug eyed them in silence, a little of the girl behind the heroine’s mask peeking through as she cringed slightly from their empty, accusing stares.

            “They can’t hurt you,” said Wildcat gently. She bent to pick up a stray skull, knocked down by the akuma’s passage, and placed it back on its shelf. “Though I’ll grant you, it’s creepy. This akuma’s pretty disrespectful, rampaging through here.”

            The akuma’s trail led them on through the ossuary. Wildcat didn’t even need to listen; the scratches and scuffmarks spoke loudly enough by themselves. Eventually, though, they disappeared into a totally lightless tunnel beyond a stern DÉFENSE D’ENTRER sign hanging loose from the ceiling by one chain. The contents of a toolbox, left behind by some worker, had been scattered across the floor.

            “I guess this is where the tourist area ends,” said Wildcat. She closed her eyes, listening to all the little scuttles and scurries of life within the ancient tunnels, firmly blocking out anything above ground. One chamber held a seething mass of rage and dark power – even without knowing what to look for, it could only be the akuma. It no longer had its claws on Adrien; he was in a second, smaller chamber some distance off, still asleep as far as Wildcat could tell. “They’ve split up,” she said. “It’s stowed him away in a little cave, feels like. What do we concentrate on? The boy or the monster?”

            Ladybug scowled, clenching her fists. “ _We_ split up,” she decided. “The akuma will come looking for me – they always do. I’ll deal with it. You find Adrien and get him out.”

            “You sure?” She nodded firmly. “Well… It’s gonnae be pitch black through there.” She crouched to rummage through the toolbox and stood up with a small headtorch. “Here,” she said after testing the bulb a couple of times. “I can see in the dark. Dunno about you.”

            “I can’t.” Ladybug strapped the torch to her forehead.

            “Feels like the akuma’s down that way,” said Wildcat, pointing down one fork in the tunnel. “But if we’re splitting up…” She looked at the rope in her hands.

            “There’s one way we can be sure of getting out,” said Ladybug, and pointed at the ceiling.

            Wildcat grinned. “Fair enough. Good luck.”

            Darkness fell again as Ladybug disappeared down the tunnel, but it was no obstacle to Wildcat’s night vision. She dropped the rope and set off at a brisk trot, at each junction taking the branch that pointed towards Adrien.

            “Not sure how I feel about leaving her to face that thing alone,” she muttered to herself, more to fill the silence than anything else. “She can’t be much older than her partner, wherever he’s got to. But between helping a normal kid and one with superpowers… Well, it’s obvious where I’m needed more.” The tunnel suddenly widened out into a broader cavern and she halted for a second to catch her bearings, listening for Adrien’s presence once again. It was still there and now awake, but no longer alone in the cavern – the dark cloud of the Black Cat’s power surrounded him.

            _Good, Chat Noir’s found him. I’ll help him get him out._ Wildcat broke into a run again, listening for their presence. Chat Noir’s voice shouted somewhere, too distant and muffled to make out what he said, but his power seemed to sharpen, coalescing from a cloud to a spear point, and the entire tunnel system rumbled. _Oh, that can’t be good._

            Agonising minutes of wrong turns and dark tunnels crawled by before, at last, Chat Noir rounded a corner at a dead run and slammed headlong into her.

            “Hoped I’d run into you,” said Wildcat, rubbing her jaw where his skull had whacked it. “Though maybe not so literally. Where’s the kid? Ladybug’s dead worried, and I reckon she’ll need a hand against the a…ku…ma.” She slowly trailed off as the sound of panicked beeping emanated from Chat Noir’s ring, the light of detransformation flashed over him, and Adrien Agreste stared back at her through wide green eyes. His little black cat of a kwami hovered at his shoulder, looking much less concerned.

            “Oh, Jesus,” groaned Wildcat. “ _Why_ didn’t I put that together?” Adrien shrugged helplessly. “Right. Right. First things first – I won’t say a word. Your secret’s safe so stop with the big worried eyes! We can talk about it later if you want, and if not then we don’t have to. Until then – recharge and follow me, because your lady needs your help.”

            “Ladybug’s here?” he asked as he fed his kwami a wedge of pungent cheese.

            “Somewhere in the catacombs, aye – she went after the akuma by herself. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be hard to find.” As if on cue, the akuma’s roar echoed through the tunnels.

            He nodded. “Plagg, _transformez-moi!_ ”

            It was easier when both of them had night vision. They ran through the catacombs, following both Wildcat’s powers and the sounds of battle. Tunnel after tunnel flashed by until they reached another much bigger chamber, its walls still marked by the chisels of long-dead stonemasons, and Ladybug hurtled out of a tunnel opposite them.

            “Ladybug!”

            “Chat Noir! _Où est Adrien?_ ”

            “ _En sécurité,_ ” he assured her.

            “Aye, he’s… not here,” said Wildcat. Well, it was true in a sense.

            “I think I know how to stop the akuma,” said Ladybug in English, “but I need to get away from it first – I need more time!” All three of them stared at the tunnel. The scrape of claws was getting louder.

            _Right._ “I’ll get you some,” said Wildcat. They both started to protest, but she held up one hand. “You beat the akuma, everything gets fixed, right? But only _you_ can do it. Get going, you two.”

            “I don’t think you can stop it for long,” said Ladybug quietly.

            “Maybe not. But I can slow it down long enough for you to set things up. Now shoo!”

            After a last glance, they both disappeared the way Chat Noir and Wildcat had come. Wildcat turned to face the opposite tunnel.

            A cloud of purple mist heralded the akuma as it crawled out to face her. Ladybug’s description had been accurate, but inadequate: it hadn’t captured the sabre fangs curving down from the creature’s jaw, the ruff of horns curving out around its head, or the talons like grappling hooks on the two powerful legs it used to drag its snake-like body along. Metallic plates of armour protected the underside of its jaw, sliding over one another as it opened its mouth.

            Wildcat shifted her balance, waiting with bated breath to see what the creature would do as it studied her with malevolent black eyes. She had not expected it to speak.

            “Step aside,” it said in a voice straight from the pits of Hell. “This is not your fight.”

            “Is that what you think?” asked Wildcat. The akuma lifted its head, clearly not expecting this response. “Because _I_ think that you dragged a kid from his bed in the dead of night and carried him off down to tunnels full o’ bones and God knows what else.” She unsheathed her claws. “So if it’s all the same tae you, I’m gonnae _make_ it my fight.”

            “The boy’s father _humiliated_ me!” hissed the akuma. “But now – now I am Lindormez, and I _will_ have revenge!”

            “Well, I’m Wildcat.” She bared her fangs, rage bringing out the Scots. “And I’m gonnae kick yer teeth oot the back o’ yer hied afore I let ye harm anither bairn.”

            Lindormez lunged for her with a roar, jaws wide open and streaming its purple breath. Wildcat sprang to meet him, screaming a wordless battle cry, and sank her claws into the sides of the huge muzzle. Purple-black blood oozed from the wounds, only getting worse as the akuma tried to shake her off.

            “Ye ken, I might be the only Wildcat who’s never killed someone,” she said, digging her claws in deeper. “But I’m _really_ thinkin’ o’ makin’ you the first.”

            “You don’t stand a chance alone!” Lindormez reared up, lifting her right off the ground, and drove the tip of its muzzle towards the nearest wall. Wildcat let go and dropped to the ground a split second before it could flatten her ribs against the stone, then threw all her weight behind the claws on her right toecap in a kick aimed at the akuma’s leg. The steel claws ripped through the monster’s scaly hide and the ropy tendons below; Lindormez shrieked as the leg abruptly failed to support its weight and fell heavily to the stone floor, only to flail its whole body around and lash out with its other leg. One huge talon punched right through Wildcat’s tunic and into the flesh below, but she shied back before it could sink in too deeply and dodged inside the akuma’s reach.

            “Ye’ve got thae plates on yer chin,” she said, pressing one hand over the wound. “Reckon ye’re hiding something important there, eh?” She leapt, grabbed one of the akuma’s horns, dug her boots’ claws beneath the edge of the armour, and heaved with both legs. Lindormez screeched as the plates tore away, revealing raw, soft-looking hide beneath and something – an amulet of some kind – shining over his throat, but before she could even reach for it he shook his head violently, caught her between his teeth, and bit down hard. Wildcat knew that Alli’s power couldn’t stop bullets. It quickly became clear that it couldn’t stop the teeth of a dragon either, and an animal scream ripped from her throat. Lindormez shook her twice like a terrier with a rat and threw her against the wall. She hit it back-first with a horrible crack and slid down to slump on the floor.

            “You thought you could stop me here?” said Lindormez. Its face did not change, but there was a sneer in its voice.

            The taste of iron filled Wildcat’s mouth, making her retch; she spat the blood out and clamped both hands over her midriff. The stains on her tunic were quickly getting bigger. “Naw,” she said once the pain had ebbed enough to let her speak. “Not really. But I reckon I bought the kids enough time to put Ladybug’s plan together.”

            “You fought in _vain_ ,” it snarled. “They will not escape either.”

            “Aye, _right_.”

            Lindormez vanished down the tunnel with a last contemptuous snort, leaving spots of its dark purple blood on the stone.

            Wildcat coughed hard, wincing at the renewed pain in her belly, and summoned enough breath to speak once again. “Alli – the hunt is over.”

            “You _idiot!_ ” yelled Alli once she was out. “What are you thinking? Not only do you practically throw yourself into that thing’s teeth, but then you release your transformation? With wounds like those, it was the _only_ thing keeping you-” She broke off, unable to finish the sentence.

            “I’m thinking,” said Sandy, each word an effort, “that even if the wee ladybirds fix everything… I won’t make you feel this again.” She grimaced and closed her eyes.

            “No, no, no, you open those eyes, you moron! You hear me?” Sandy’s hands went limp, their grip on her belly going loose. Her head lolled to one side. “Sandy! _Sandy!_ ” No response. With a choked-off sob, Alli landed on Sandy’s shoulder and curled up against the side of her neck. “You two had _better_ make the most of this,” she said, staring into the dark.

            Somehow it didn’t seem right that Sandy’s watch was still ticking. Minutes went past one snail-like second at a time as Lindormez roared in the distance. More screams, this time aboveground; the shriek of twisting metal and the crash of breaking rock and collapsing brickwork. Then quiet.

            Tick. Tick. Tick.

            Alli sat up, trembling. Her ears quivered, listening for any hint of the Ladybird’s power in the tunnels. “Come on,” she whispered. “Come _on…_ ”

            Like the first subtle wave of an earthquake, Tikki’s power flicked against her own long before there was anything to see or hear. Then came an odd scurrying, ringing sound, heralding a glint of red light in the tunnel moments before a wave of glowing ladybirds rushed towards them and swarmed around Sandy for the briefest of moments. The next second, they were gone along with any sign of a wound. Even the bloodstains had vanished. Alli floated in front of Sandy’s eyes. Another slow couple of seconds passed before they opened, and her chest heaved in a deep breath.

            “ _Fuck_ , that hurt,” were the first words out of her mouth.

            Alli gave her an affectionate headbutt. “Don’t do anything like that again,” she scolded. “Eejit-features.”

            Sandy heaved herself to her feet, leaning on the tunnel wall. “I do _not_ plan on it,” she assured her.

            “You’re not, by the way.”

            “Not what?”

            “The first Wildcat who hasn’t killed anyone,” said Alli. “Though I’ll admit you’re one of few.”

            “Huh. You know, you still need to tell me about your previous wielders. I’d like to know what sort of legacy I’m picking up here.”

            “Later,” promised Alli. “When we’re home. For now, let’s just get out of these godforsaken tunnels.”

            “Couldn’t agree more. Alli, the hunt is on.”

            The street outside was deserted when Wildcat finally reached the catacombs’ exit, but two figures still watched from a nearby roof. She took a deep breath of the cool night air and waved up to them. Ladybug lifted a hand in thanks, and they were gone.

            The following night found Wildcat lounging on the roof of Sacré-Coeur once again. Her train home was booked for the next afternoon, but she still wanted to enjoy the view one last time.

            “Hello, Chat Noir,” she said out loud.

            He hopped down from the same ledge as before. “How did you know I was here?”

            “Miraculous Wildcat powers,” she said. “Also, you’re wearing a bell.”

            “Ah.” He sat down beside her. “So… What you saw in the catacombs…”

            “Is a secret I will take to my grave,” she said.

            He gave a little sigh of relief.

            “Does Ladybug know?”

            He shook his head sadly. “No. I want to tell her, but she’s strict about keeping our identities secret. Even from each other.”

            “I can see where she’s coming from. I like my privacy too. So.” Wildcat sat up. “Stop me if this is getting too personal, but let me see if I have you two sorted out. You’re in love with Ladybug.”

            “Yes,” he said wistfully.

            “And she…”

            “There’s another boy.”

            “Ouch. Has she said who? No, of course not, secret identity. Except… You’re in love with a girl, she’s in love with someone else, but neither of you know who the other one actually _is_ behind the mask?”

            “Yes…”

            “Do you see the situation you might be setting yourself up for here?”

            He frowned. “You’re saying the other boy might be… _me?_ ”

            “Could be.”

            He considered this possibility from all angles. “No,” he finally said. “No, I’d know if Ladybug was in love with me.”

            “Aye, you know her better than I do.”  

            “My turn to ask a question,” he said. “Why did you help us against the akuma? This isn’t your home. You don’t know us. You didn’t have to say yes when Ladybug asked. But… You stayed back to fight a dragon to give us time to defeat it, and there was _blood_ on its teeth when it came to face us.”

            “Aye, I can’t recommend getting too close to its mouth.” Wildcat sighed. “I suppose… I’m protective of kids. Even ones with superpowers.”

            “My father’s protective. I don’t think he would run into the catacombs to help a total stranger. There’s more to it than that, I can tell.”

            “Well, nobody ever said you weren’t perceptive. You really want the whole sob story?” He nodded, though not without a little hesitation. “I suppose you’re entitled after I pried into your relationship. But… don’t interrupt? It’s not an easy story to continue if I stop halfway.” Wildcat folded her arms and gazed out at the skyline. “Ten years ago,” she began, “my little brother Hamish went on a camping trip in the Cairngorms – the mountains where I live – with a group of friends. It was one of them’s birthday. Long-time friends of the family; their dad went too, to keep an eye on them. I’d been invited as well; not that I was close with the kid whose birthday it was, but I think the various parents wanted a bit more adult supervision, and I _was_ an adult, legally at least.

            “I didn’t go. I had a part-time job, you see, helping in an outdoors shop in Aviemore. To this day I can’t remember why it was so important at the time – my boss was pretty laid-back, she would’ve been happy to let me go with them – but still. I didn’t go camping.

            “Hamish had a great time. He sent me texts all weekend, taunting me with how much fun he and his pals were having. They saw all kinds of wildlife – deer, eagles, even a pine marten – and went kayaking on the lochan, hiking in the mountains… It was a good birthday for that kid. Blue skies the whole time.

            “Then, on the hike back… They got caught in a storm. It wasn’t forecast, but the weather can change quickly in the mountains. It came out of nowhere, torrential rain and gale-force winds. They took a vote, whether to stop at a bothy – a shelter – and wait out the storm or to keep going and get back to the road. They kept going.”

            Chat Noir swallowed. “What happened?”

            “There… was a landslide. They’d stopped under an overhang, just long enough to check their map, but with the storm… The overhang collapsed over them.” Wildcat slowly lowered her head to her hands and went on. “Some of them got out in time. Hamish didn’t. I… I still don’t know if it happened quickly when the cliff came down on him or if the rescue team couldn’t dig him out fast enough. I hope it was the first one. But the end result was the same either way. My little brother was gone and I hadn’t been there to help him.” She straightened up again with another sigh. “So now I save everyone I can, especially kids. And maybe, one day, it will feel like enough.” She turned her head slightly towards Chat Noir but didn’t quite look at him. “In this _specific_ case… It probably helped that you remind me very strongly of Hamish, and not just in how you look a bit like him.”

            Chat Noir looked down at his feet. It took him a while to find his voice again. “My father wasn’t always so protective,” he said without looking at Wildcat. “My mother is missing. She disappeared, and I don’t know what happened to her. I know Père just wants to keep me safe after that, but… I only have any real freedom as Chat Noir.”    

            “I got that feeling when Ladybug showed me your room. I can see why you want to hide, even without the akuma problem.”

            “I… I’m sorry about your brother.”

            “And I’m sorry about your mum. Well, since it seems to be a night for sharing secrets,” said Wildcat, “Alli – the hunt is over.”

            “What the hell?” asked Alli once the light faded.

            “What? It’s only fair.”

            “ _Detransformez-moi_.”

            Both kwamis bobbed up to look at each other.

            “Alli.”

            “Plagg.”

            “Still a grump?”

            “Generally. Still a glutton?”

            “You know it!”

            Sandy caught Adrien’s eye and had to laugh despite herself. “Of course they know each other. Of _course_ they do.”

            He gave that small smile again, a little less shy than before. “When do you leave Paris?”

            “You that keen to see the back of me? My train’s tomorrow afternoon. I’m ready to get out of the city and back to the mountains. It’s too _noisy_ here.” She laughed again. “It’s been a weird few days, but I’m glad they happened. Certain dragony events aside,” she added at an incredulous look from Alli. “It’s been good to know mine isn’t the only Miraculous out there.” She held out one hand to him. “Sandy Macpherson. Have a look for me if you’re ever in the Cairngorms.”

            He shook it. “Adrien Agreste. I think I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Lindormez' (lin-dor-may) is a play on 'lindworm' - the kind of dragon it is, a long snaky body with just two legs - and 'dormez', French imperative for 'sleep'. He was a rather nasty individual even before he got akumatised.


	6. Epilogue - Wildcat Territory

            Sandy folded her hands behind her head and lay back on the flat boulder to gaze up at the perfect mackerel sky, puffs of harmless white patterned over clear blue. It was a crisp, cool day, not yet fully winter – there was no sign of snow or even a dusting of frost – but autumn was definitely almost over. Weather in the Cairngorms didn’t get much better. Technically she was still at work, but with summer past and the ski season yet to descend she had nowhere to be until the afternoon’s nature hike, and there were a few hours left to enjoy the gentle breeze and the calm of the mountains. She closed her eyes as Alli sunned herself above her head.

            _Click-click, click-click._

            Something soft and blunt prodded her rather hard in the chest, and she opened her eyes again to look up at the velvety pink-and-white snout of a curious reindeer.

            “Hey, Svalbard,” said Sandy, patting the side of the reindeer’s neck. “No, I don’t have any snacks for you,” she added as Svalbard investigated her pockets.

            The walkie-talkie on her belt buzzed and a staticky voice – only vaguely recognisable as Niamh from one of the visitor centres – called her name. Svalbard’s ears twitched forwards at the sound and he inspected the device for a moment, before he decided that it wasn’t edible and lost interest. Sandy groaned and sat up.

            “Where did you all come from so quickly?” she asked, looking around at the small forest of antlers surrounding her boulder. “Ladybird, Jenga, Camembert… The gang’s all here.” She answered the walkie-talkie as Svalbard wandered off. “Macpherson.”

            “Sandy! You’re needed down here.”

            Sandy checked her watch. “I thought the nature hike wasn’t until later.”

            “It’s not, but Rashid’s going to lead it instead. You, lucky you, have been seconded as a guide for a private group.”

            “That’s unusual.”

            “Yeah, apparently it’s some bigshot designer over from France. They’re doing a photoshoot for a new outdoors line.”

            “They don’t have an outdoors in France?”

            “Oh, don’t ask me their reasoning, just get down here as soon as you can. Sorry for the short notice.”

            “No problem. I’ll be there in a bit.” She released the talk button and stretched out her arms. “Guess the break’s over, Alli. Let’s get back to the Catmobile.”

            “What have I told you about calling it that?”

            The visitor centre was the busiest Sandy had ever seen it when she shoved the door open. There were a few tourists hanging around, flicking through leaflets or looking at the posters, but most of the space was taken up by a lot of very serious, well-dressed people with exquisitely-printed nametags.

            “…a childish marketing gimmick,” a tall, imperious man was saying to Niamh at the desk, flicking a dismissive hand towards a life-size cardboard cutout of Wildcat bearing a speech bubble of mountain safety tips.

            “Not at all,” said Niamh, catching Sandy’s eye and frantically waving her over. “Sandy, back me up! He thinks Wildcat isn’t real.”

            “No, she’s as real as I am,” said Sandy, keeping her face carefully neutral. Alli squirmed with suppressed laughter inside her hoodie, then suddenly went still.

            “You wait until winter,” said Niamh firmly. “When people start getting into more trouble out on the hills, you’ll see. She’ll be out helping in no time.”

            “I have _no_ intention of being here in winter,” said the man. “Are you our guide?” he said to Sandy.

            “So I’ve been told.”

            “I am Gabriel Agreste. My employees and I will be staying here for the next week as we carry out an extensive photoshoot for my new collection.” He waved a hand towards his retinue and, to his credit, introduced them all by name from the caterers and makeup artists through to the photographers and a hulking bodyguard. “And finally my assistant Ms Sancoeur, my son Adrien, and Ms Dupain-Cheng who,” he paused for an instant; there might have been a sigh there, “won a contest to shadow me for work experience.” If he didn’t seem terribly enthused by this last part, the excitement in Ms Dupain-Cheng’s huge blue eyes more than made up for it.

            Adrien, behind his father, gave a small grin.

            “Ranger Sandy Macpherson,” said Sandy, meeting his eyes and returning a tiny, almost unnoticeable wink. “And I’ll be keeping you all out of trouble while you’re here. Welcome to the Cairngorms.”

            The photoshoot itself, Ms Sancoeur explained, would begin the following morning. All that remained for that day was for everyone to get settled in their accommodation, and Sandy was to meet them in the hotel foyer at 7am sharp to discuss shooting locations, access and other issues.

            “I guess you’re off-duty,” said Niamh as the Agreste party filed out to their buses and trailers.

            “Guess so,” said Sandy. “I’ll see you later.”

            That night, Alli waited until her wielder was sound asleep before she rose from her little padded basket on the bedside table, phased through the window, and perched on the cottage chimney to listen. Without the filter of a Miraculous, her power was both stronger and more precise; she could sense life over much longer distances, and could pick one target out of a group with far greater ease. Her current prey, however, was not so far away.

            “There you are,” she muttered, and kicked off from the chimney to soar through the Highland night, tracking a signature as clear as a candle in a dark hall to the window of a particular hotel room. She passed through the glass and landed silently on the pillow beside the sleeping man’s head. Although she had followed the trace of Nooroo’s power, the butterfly kwami was hidden away in the wardrobe. Probably for the best; perhaps the poor creature would be compelled to warn his master.  

            Alli dropped her voice to its deepest, most threatening growl, the kind that carried into a sleeper’s dream, and began to speak.

            “Once upon a time,” she said, “the king of the butterflies came to the territory of a ferocious wildcat, the queen of all hunters, and started causing trouble.

            “The king was clever. ‘I will keep to the shadows,’ he decided, ‘and send my subjects out to do my work. I will be safe, and the wildcat will not even know I am here.’ And he began sending out his butterfly henchmen in his place, preying on the desperate to twist them into monsters that would do his bidding, confident that no hunter was skilled enough to follow the trail of a butterfly back to his hiding-place.

            “No hunter, it turned out, but the wildcat. She sharpened her claws, tracked down the butterfly king, and _ripped his little wings off_.” The sleeping man twitched as if in the throes of a sudden nightmare. Alli bared her little teeth and lifted from the pillow. “The end. Enjoy your stay.”

            And nothing out of the ordinary happened for the rest of the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the reindeer mentioned by name are real. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I don't write fanfiction often, but I was fond of the design I came up with for Wildcat and Alli and wanted to do something more with them.


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